Comté Cocktail Crackers

Comté Cocktail Crackers

This recipe comes from Melissa Clark’s cook book, Dinner in French. According to Melissa, “For grown-ups these are the perfect savory snack to serve with cocktails. They’re pleasantly piquant, deeply buttery, have just the right crunch. You can serve them at room temperature, but if you want to spoil your guests, bring them out while they are still warm from the oven, either freshly baked or briefly reheated.”

Ingredients

1 ½ cups (915 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

1 ½ cups (6 ounces) finely grated Comté, divided

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon hot smoked paprika, plus more for sprinkling

10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks/141 grams) cold unsalted butter, cubed

Flaky sea salt, to taste

Instructions

In a food processor, pulse to combine the flour, 1 cup (4 ounces) of the Comté, the cornstarch, sugar, fine sea salt, and paprika. Add the butter and continue to process until the dough forms a ball. Or, combine everything in a large bowl and use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut the butter and cheese into the flour mixture. Be thorough so the dough is mostly smooth (though a few small butter chunks are okay).

Place the dough between two pieces of parchment paper or wax paper and roll it out to ¼-inch thickness. Slide the whole think onto a baking sheet and chill until firm 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 350˚F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Use a 1-inch round cookie cutter to cut the dough into disks, and transfer them to the prepared baking sheets. Reroll the scraps between the parchment paper and cut out more discs.